


Two Boys and A Cryptid

by actual_iggy



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: AU, AU where Fiddleford is helpful, Cryptids, I guess this is some iteration of a better world au?, Killbillies, Other, The harming of garbage animals, unaccompanied minors in the mid-80s inner city
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-06-24 01:46:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15619767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/actual_iggy/pseuds/actual_iggy
Summary: Tate McGucket, precocious second grader and child of Fiddleford McGucket, local unstable homeless man, remembers things. He remembers how his dad worked with Stanford in a house in the woods, he remembers the hooded men who gave him the scar on his face, and he remembers a time before he and his father lived in the dump and ate roadkill and garbage, and before Stan Pines lived in that house in the woods. Recalling faintly information about Stanford's little brother in New Jersey, Tate, his school friend Tad Strange and a juvenile killbilly known as Buddy embark on a journey to help Stanford and in the process help the McGuckets get their lives back.





	1. Establishing Chapter

The group of children giggled and mumbled amongst each other as they dug open their prize: a garbage bag claimed from the dumpster behind the convenience store. A back door opened, flooding the scene with light. Five filthy, shaggy-haired children between the ages of 7 and 10, perfectly human save for their glowing white eyes and clawed fingers. The old man who approached them shook a broom, shouting in anger at the little scavengers. All of them, to a child, turned, hissed at him, bearing sharp teeth, then de-materialized, vanishing into the night. Only one was left behind- one of the younger ones, looking around in irritation at his companions.

“Aw, come on, guys!” he called to any of the others who may have been around. The old man put his broom down a little. These scavenger children did not usually speak. Gnomes definitely spoke, but the scavenging hill-children? No. The child who had spoken, noticing the adult still present, began to run off in a four-legged lope before being called out to.

“Hey, wait! Come here, buddy.”

He cautiously approached the adult who had produced a plastic bag and held it out, putting on a friendly smile. No longer did he appear as the angry antagonizer who chased pests off from the dumpster, but now had a much more grandfatherly look to his face. The nametag on his chest, now visible, read "PA" in bold, friendly letters. The child looked up, still in a very cautious crouch, his eyes visible through his shaggy, dirty bangs. They did not glow as the others had, and his nails, while filthy, were not claws. The old man gently handed over the plastic bag, speaking again to the boy.

“You’re McGucket’s kid, right?” Getting no answer save for another suspicious glance, the man continued. “Here, take this. Hot case food we didn’t sell today, perfectly edible and better for you than our trash! Bring some home to your dad too.”

The child did take the bag, glancing at the contents. He then stood fully upright and manifested a smile at the man. His teeth were not sharp the way the other childrens’ had been. He spoke again:

“Thank y’.”

With that, the boy loped off into the dark of the town, undoubtedly to wherever he had come from to enjoy his bounty.

* * *

 

“Dad, I got corn dogs!” the boy dropped into the messy hovel via a hole in the roof.

“Tate, you weren’t goin’ through the trash again, were ya?” his father said, not entirely focusing on his child as he dug his dirty fingers in the skull of an opossum and dumped the brain matter onto a plate. “And don’t go through the roof.”

“What’cha doin’?” the boy asked, ignoring his father’s scolding.

“Makin’ supper.”

Tate wrinkled his nose at the mass of goo on the plate. “That’s possum’s brains, not supper.” He argued. “I got corn dogs, and that’s a supper.”

“Hey now, possum brains is good for you. Eatin’ the brains’ll make you gain their intelligence!”

“And a brain parasite.” Tate agreed, pulling a hard, crispy corn dog out of his bag and proceeding to gnaw on it. His father accepted an offer of the bag and started gnawing on his own corn dog.

“Overcooked.” He grunted, crunching the breaded hot dog regardless.

“I been thinkin’- er, Dad, why you got a band-aid in your beard?” Tate pointed out the dirtied bandage tangled in his father’s very long grayed beard. The man inspected it closely, frowning as his blue eyes drifted in opposite directions.

“Y’know, I don’t know.” He answered his son’s question. “Savin’ it for later, I ‘spose.”

“Ew!” Tate giggled at the concept of saving a band-aid in one’s beard ‘for later.’ He crunched his corn dog again and then continued his thought: “I been thinkin’, that Stanford would be able to help us, if he hadn’t’ve moved away. ‘Cuz now Stan lives there, and he ain’t Stanford, they’re different,”

“Tate, slow down, hun, now, um, which one is Stanford again?” his father put his hands out to stop his son.

“Stanford! He’s your friend, you used to work with him a long time ago, on somethin’ dangerous in the basement!” Tate clarified.

“I… don’t recall…” the man seemed to be trying to remember the events but failed. “Tate, eat your possum brains.”

“Ew.” Tate poked a finger in the gray-pink goo. “I’m full.” He lied despite having only eaten half a very hardened corn dog.

“It’s good for ya’. Now eat up!” his father insisted.

“I jus’ said I’m full!” Tate rubbed his snotty nose with one arm and inspected the results. “Don’ wanna eat no possum’s brains. Don’ wanna get no parasite like you got…” he muttered, huffily.

“Tater!” he was scolded. “If you ain’t hungry then scoot on off to bed.”

“Will do. G’night.” Tate crawled into the pile of dirty blankets on a mattress and snuggled up to a toy opossum. He remembered vaguely being a small child, afraid to be away from his mom and his house, being presented with the toy by his smiling father. This was before everything had gone bad, back when everything was clean and warm and his father laughed and plucked on his banjo and tapped his foot as Tate clumsily danced along in the living room before bed. Now, though, there was cold and dirt and salvaged garbage for supper. Sleeping in the junkyard and getting pitied looks from classmates and townspeople. Instead of vegetables now Tate was urged to eat possum brains and roadkilled raccoons. He hung onto the memories of what it was like before as hard as he could, because, well, his dad couldn’t remember them anymore, and his mom moved far away, so he was the only one those memories had left to be remembered by.

Tate was seven years old and he refused to forget.


	2. Tate befriends a cryptid

“I know that whoever lives in that house now,” Tate began at the lunch table. His companion, an unremarkable looking boy with straight black hair and dark brown eyes supplied the information for him:

“Stan Pines lives there. He runs tours.”

“I know that, Tad!” Tate griped. “Anyways, Stanford doesn’t live there anymore. I know that him and Stan Pines ain’t the same person, I know it! Something happened where Stanford moved away, and my gut tells me he’s in trouble.”

“Why does your gut say that?” Tad asked, looking at the half eaten ‘sandwich’ he held which was actually just three slices of white bread stacked together.

“Because,” Tate stated, looking at his own lunch- a slice of Tad’s bread and a leftover crispy corn dog from the night before. “If Stanford wasn’t in trouble, he’d’ve come to find me and Dad by now.”

“Do you think maybe those people who gave you your scar got him?” Tad asked, indicating the fresh pink scar on Tate’s face- an X across both eyes, mostly hidden by his long dirty bangs.

“Dunno.” Tate responded, biting into his corn dog with a loud crunch.

Getting home that afternoon, Tate noted his dad was nowhere to be found so he resigned to playing alone in the dump. As he poked around the abandoned cars and mattresses with a stick, he frowned. One of the glowing-eyed children approached him, cocking its head back and forth curiously like an animal. It walked in a crouch, occasionally stretching out on all fours to investigate further. It wore a tattered pair of pants held up with a rope through the belt loops and no shirt or shoes. It also had a dirty old straw hat on which covered some of the stringy, shaggy dishwater blond hair.

“I don’t get it.” Tate lamented to the child, which cocked its head sympathetically He offered it a severed raccoon leg he had found in the hovel. “Stanford’s gone, Dad can’t remember nothin’…” he searched his memory for anything that might help. Suddenly, it hit him. “Stanford’s got a little brother in New Jersey!”

“Myeh!” the other child chirped, grinning and displaying his pointed teeth. He began to gnaw on the leg, quickly stripping meat from bone.

“How’re we gonna get to New Jersey, though…” Tate considered, ignoring the noise of the other chewing on raccoon bone. “It’s too far to walk, I suspect, and I don’t got money.”

“Nyh.” His companion helpfully offered, tossing the bone aside.

“I can talk killbilly y’know.” Tate snorted at the other’s antics. He methodically slapped his hands on his body, hamboning in a language only these creatures spoke. _Look, see, I told ya’!_

The child cocked its head again before responding in the same manner: _Yer friend’s got money. Take him along!_

“No, I don’t think Tad’s got money. What kind of second grader’s got money?” Tate shook his head. “We’d have to steal, probably. Is stealin’ okay if it’s for the greater good?”

The killbilly shrugged in a universal indication of “I don’t know.”

“I like you. You can come along if you’d like. Dad says it’s safer in numbers anyways.” Tate offered the other who jumped and chirped excitedly at the idea. “I don’t know if y’all have proper names in human-talk, so I’m gonna call you Buddy, ‘cuz you’re my buddy.”

Buddy de-materialized and then reappeared with a patched makeshift backpack that appeared to be made of an abandoned pair of men’s dress pants. Tate, laughing, went and got his own school backpack, looking at the supplies within. He held up a pencil case made of an old cardboard tube container which had once held bread crumbs.

“Think we need smelly markers on a trip to New Jersey?” he asked Buddy, who sniffed curiously at the offered red marker and then attempted to eat it. “Hey!” Tate laughed as he pulled his marker away. “Okay, guess not.” He rummaged around more in his backpack, the tube of markers set to the side. “A Trapper-Keeper that used to have a horse on it?” he produced the faded notebook. This too was thrown aside. “A lunch pail.” This was literally a bright yellow plastic beach toy with “Tate M.” scrawled on the bottom. This was also tossed aside. Tate retreated into the hovel he lived in and started refilling the backpack with supplies.

In the end, he and Buddy set out for Tad’s house with both their backpacks full. Tate had his jacket, his stuffed opossum and a glass jar of water. Buddy had a couple of dead squirrels and a plastic milk jug of the clear liquor the killbillies all drank. Tate knocked on the door of the pleasantly decorated home in town and was greeted by his friend. He knew Tad was alone after school, because most kids were in Gravity Falls. All the adults worked and there wasn’t a daycare, and the town was generally considered safe as long as kids stayed out of the woods.

“Hello, Tate!” Tad greeted. “Who’s your friend?”

“That’s Buddy. We’re goin’ on a mission. Wanna help?” Tate responded.

“What kind of mission?” Tad stepped aside to nonverbally invite the two dirtier kids into his house.

“Stanford, the one my dad used to work for, he’s got a little brother in New Jersey. I bet that little brother can help us find where he went!” Tate explained. “We need to go to New Jersey.”

“New Jersey is all the way on the East Coast. That’s awful far.” Tad tipped his head to one side, his small smile not really changing. “But I bet we can take a Greyhound bus. They go everywhere!”

“Those cost money!” Tate lamented. Buddy chirped despondently. Tad headed into the depths of the house and emerged with a small wooden box.

“My mom left twenty dollars here in case there was an emergency!” he announced, producing the bill. Tate grinned, justifying in his head that it wasn't actually stealing if Tad's mom had left the money there for Tad.

“Well then, pack your backpack up and meet us at the bus terminal, Tad. We’re goin’ to New Jersey!”


	3. Boarding the Bus

Tate squinted at the board in front of the trio. It listed all the cities in New Jersey to go to. He scanned his memory for something, anything that may indicate which city Stanford’s brother may live in. Suddenly he thought of something.

“’Scuse me, do ya’ got a phone book from New Jersey so I can call my cousin?” he asked the woman sweetly. She smiled in a friendly way.

“Let me look.”

She emerged with a thick book. “Here, hun. What’s your cousin’s last name?”

“Um, Pines.” Tate responded, his father’s voice echoing in his head: _Stanford Pines, will you at least try to be a good example to my son!_

“Ah, the Pines Pawnshop in Glass Shard Beach?”

“Yup.” Tate answered with all the confidence he could.

“Here’s the phone number. Do you need a quarter for the pay phone?” she handed him a scrap of paper. Tate shook his head.

“No, thanks. I’d like to buy three Greyhound tickets to go to Glass Shard Beach, though.”

Mildly suspicious, but polite, and with minimal probing into where exactly the trio’s parents were, she sold them the tickets and pointed to the correct place to await their bus.

 

* * *

 

 The bus driver, a gruff man with gray hair and sunglasses eyed the trio of children critically. One wasn’t wearing a shirt, two were filthy and the third seemed off somehow.

“Can’t let you in without a shirt and shoes.” He informed them, deciding for the moment to leave the whole ‘unaccompanied elementary school child’ thing alone. The one with a shirt on promptly sat down and began putting on a pair of dirty, far too-small, holey tennis shoes from his backpack. The odd one crouched at his side and asked,

“Tate, what will we do about Buddy not having a shirt?”

“I got a spare. It’s dirty but it’ll work.” Tate responded, tossing the shirt to his friend. The killbilly grunted in distaste as he pulled the T-shirt over his head and then replaced his hat.

“I think I have spare shoes!” Tad suggested, rummaging around for them in his bag. The bus driver, realizing his rule did nothing to discourage these children, sighed and resigned to having them on his bus for however long it took.

“It’s fine. Where are your parents?” he asked as Tad produced the three tickets.

“We’re visiting our cousin for the first time on our own!” Tad lied, offering the most excited grin he could manage.

“And someone’ll pick you up at the terminal?”

“Yup.” Tad agreed, holding eye contact with the driver as he produced one of his ‘bread sandwiches’ from his backpack and took a bite. The driver looked uncomfortable and pointed in the direction of the seats.

“Go sit down. We leave in a couple minutes.”

Settled with Tate and Buddy sharing the window seat and Tad on the aisle, Tad posed a question.

“Tate, what are we going to do about our parents? Surely they will look for us!”

“Don’t worry, Buddy and me took care of that!” Tate responded grinning. “We left decoys!”

* * *

 

Back in the dump, Tate’s dad glanced at what could be Tate and asked, “How’s school today?”

“Nyh,” grunted the juvenile killbilly who was dressed as Tate.

“Sounds fun.” His dad absentmindedly agreed, picking at the feathers of the bird he had apparently caught. He paused for a moment, scratching his head under his brown hat. “You’re awful quiet.”

“Meh.” The killbilly responded with a shrug.

“Well, anyway, come help me with supper!” Tate’s dad laughed.

Meanwhile at the Strange household, Tad’s mother asked, “Have you done your homework, Tad?”

“Yeh.” Affirmed the killbilly dressed as Tad.

“Alright, well go wash up and get ready for bed!” Mrs. Strange laughed, shooing her ‘son’ up the stairs.

A killbilly adult looked over the child in front of him and shoved a hunk of dead opossum at him, grinning with jagged, sharp teeth.

“Um, thanks I guess…” mumbled unpopular kid from Tate and Tad’s school, Matthew Smith, accepting the hunk of meat.

“Yee!” chirped the adult.

* * *

 

“Yup,” Tate grinned as the bus pulled out of the terminal. “They won’t even notice we’re gone!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fiddleford in full insanity swing is not what you'd call an ""attentive"" parent or someone who ""looks after their child properly."" He loves Tate he's just......... not parent material right now.


	4. Arrival In New Jersey

It had been about a day and a half of riding on the Greyhound bus and consuming what cheap foods the rest stops offered with the remainder of Tad’s $20. The trio of children was tired, antsy and ready to be off the bus. Tad was starting to smell, matching Tate and Buddy, since he hadn’t had a bath in nearly a week at that point.

“Next stop, Glass Shard Beach, New Jersey.” The driver, a different one than they had left with in Oregon announced. All three kids perked up at that prospect and began gathering their things. Tate glanced over at Tad’s backpack.

“Tad, why you got so much bread?” he wondered, indicating the three and a half loaves of white bread Tad had shoved into the pack.

“I like bread.” The child explained, taking a bite out of a slice.

“You’re so weird!” giggled Tate as Buddy bounced and cackled at the sight.

Getting off the bus for the last time, the boys surveyed their surroundings. There was a busy road full of honking cars, a sidewalk with a few people walking along it and some stores with apartments on top.

“We have to find the Pines’ pawnshop.” Tate announced. They all inspected various business signs, to no avail. Buddy hissed at a particularly loud car and shifted into a defensive shadow, only his white eyes showing on the black silhouette he had become. Tad nodded a greeting at a passerby as he munched on another bread sandwich. The passerby shook his head and muttered about weird little freak kids as he continued on his way. Tate noticed a payphone at a corner.

“I bet we can call and ask where they are, if they don’t got the address in the phone book.” He suggested, indicating the booth.

The phonebook did in fact contain an address for Pines Pawns: 1765, Old Needle Street. Tate wrote this on a scrap of paper Tad provided, and they were off, looking for that street and number.

“Geh.” Buddy pointed out a sub shop and rubbed his midsection, indicating hunger.

“We can’t afford that.” Tate told the killbilly who crossed his arms, considering that. He lit up and scrambled towards the alley behind the shop. Tate followed, shouting, “Buddy, no! They might poison trash here or something!”

By the time Tate and Tad found the killbilly, he was already contentedly munching on a packet of presumably expired ham. Tate snorted and shook his head, Tad looked around the alley curiously.

“Guys, there’s a man there.” He informed them. All three kids regarded the sleeping homeless man in wonder. He turned over and grunted which caused all of them to flee in a panic started by Buddy’s alarmed yip and scramble.

“Put the ham in the trash.” Tate commanded Buddy, pointing his finger down for emphasis. Buddy hissed and clutched the packet close. “You’re gonna get sick.” Tate warned, forgetting for the moment that killbillies were not human and therefore did not suffer foodborne illnesses as often or easily. Tad looked around at their surroundings more before politely tapping Tate’s shoulder. Tate, currently trying to forcibly wrestle the packet of ham away from Buddy, stopped and looked at his friend.

“I’ve found Old Needle Street.” Tad informed Tate.

"And there’s the shop! We did it, guys!” Tate grinned as he spotted the sign.

“Yee!” cheered Buddy, jumping and dropping his ham. Tate quickly kicked the packet into a storm drain.

The three children approached the shop with its big windows and ominously glowing eye sign on the second story. Tate lead the pack, Buddy and Tad standing a bit behind him. They were all dirty, Buddy had no shoes on, and Tad had a hole in his sock gained when he tripped during their scramble from the alley.

The little band of adventurers pushed the door open into the shop that would save the McGuckets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Killbillies are very similar to humans but not entirely human. In "The Pines Home For Wayward Cryptids," another fic of mine, I talk about that!


End file.
